Both are Palestinian residents of Kafr ‘Aqab, a piece of territory that under Israeli law is part of Greater Jerusalem, but under international law is considered illegally annexed territory, after its capture of Jordan in 1967.
It is also walled up from Jerusalem by Israel’s giant concrete security wall. Jewish Israelis rarely come here, except in uniform for military raids.
Mahmoud Oudeh, like thousands of other residents in the city, has a Palestinian identity document. His friend Anan abu Aishe has an Israeli ID, which defines him as a permanent resident of East Jerusalem. This entitles him to join Israel’s world-leading vaccination campaign, which is set to meet the government’s goal of inoculating the entire country by the end of March.
But at least 4.5 million Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza are left behind. So far none have had the injections, and most are unlikely to get them soon, because there is no vaccination campaign against Covid-19 in the Palestinian territories.
So if Anan gets the vaccine and continues next to his friend, cutting and selling meat from the goat and cow carcasses that turn from the store hooks, he will feel guilty.
“Half the people here can’t catch it, so I won’t catch it either, why will I catch it when they can’t? I won’t,” he told CNN.
“It’s racist,” Mahmoud added.
According to UN experts, a vaccination policy that differentiates between those with Israeli and non-Israeli identifications is “unacceptable.”
The UN expert report says that Israel is the occupying power in and over Gaza and the West Bank, and has been so since 1967 and is therefore ultimately responsible for the health of the people living there. under occupation.
According to the expert report, published by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Israel should extend its vaccination campaign to all Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
Experts also said: “4.5 million Palestinians will remain unprotected and exposed to Covid-19, while Israeli citizens living near and among them (including the population of Israeli settlers) will be vaccinated. Morally and legally, this Differential access to necessary health care in the midst of the worst global health crisis of a century is unacceptable. ”
But as the Israeli vaccination campaign exceeds 20% of the Israeli population (including East Jerusalem residents), this is not a characterization accepted by Israeli Health Minister Yuli Edelstein.
“Our calculation was based on Israeli citizens. If we get to the point where everyone in the country who wants to get vaccinated is vaccinated, we will be more than prepared to share the vaccines with our neighbors,” Edelstein told CNN.
“At this stage we are talking about Israeli citizens … I have not heard of any obligation on Israel to pay for the vaccines for another person.”
The Israeli government points to the Oslo Accords, signed in the mid-1990s with the Palestine Liberation Organization, which led to the creation of the Palestinian Authority (PA). Included in the first of these agreements is a clause entrusting responsibility to the PA for the health of all Palestinians under its civilian administration.
Experts admit that it is not an easy task to try to navigate between the responsibilities assigned by Oslo, which was not a definitive status agreement, and the functions set out in the Geneva Conventions.
In his interview with CNN, Edelstein made the decision in terms of interest rather than obligations.
“At this stage we do not supply vaccines, but we understand that it is in Israel’s interest to make sure that we do not get into a situation where we are vaccinated and then we get out of this problem, and on the Palestinian side there is another increase in number, “Edelstein added.
AP Health Minister Dr Mai Al-Kaileh says they hope to get the Covid-19 vaccine by the end of March, but that there is still no specific date set for its arrival. The ministry says it has contracted with four vaccine-producing companies. These vaccines will cover 70% of the Palestinian population and the World Health Organization will provide the Ministry with 20%, ”the PA said in a January 9 statement.
At Ramallah Central Public Hospital, doctors work 24 hours a day to treat coronavirus patients in a Covid-only intensive care unit. As in many other hospitals around the world, unskilled staff has been recruited to help deal with the pandemic. But after a prolonged shutdown, tickets drop and the day CNN visits, the ICU unit is not full.
Dr. Wafa Shihadeh, a resident general surgeon, has been working in the Covid-19 wards for months. He says he has seen many of his colleagues succumb to the infection and have passed it on to their families.
“We are starting to feel depressed because we are not getting the vaccines here in the Palestinian territories,” he said. “And on the other side of the border, Israel … I think about 1,600,000 people were vaccinated three days ago, and here in Palestine the number of people vaccinated is zero.”
Abeer Salman contributed to this report.